Hamer dropped a shilling in his hand and turned away.
He was puzzled and vaguely disquieted. "They were evil!" What a strange thing to say!
Evidently an operation for some form of disease, but - how odd it had sounded.
Hamer went home thoughtful.
He tried in vain to dismiss the incident from his mind.
Lying in bed, with the first incipient sensation of drowsiness stealing over him, he heard a neighbouring clock strike one.
One clear stroke and then silence - silence that was broken by a faint familiar sound... Recognition came leaping.
Hamer felt his heart beating quickly.
It was the man in the passageway playing, somewhere not far distant...
The notes came gladly, the slow turn with its joyful call, the same haunting little phrase...
"It's uncanny," murmured Hamer; "it's uncanny.
It's got wings to it..."
Clearer and clearer, higher and higher - each wave rising above the last, and catching him up with it. This time he did not struggle; he let himself go... Up - up... The waves of sound were carrying him higher and higher... Triumphant and free, they swept on.
Higher and higher... They had passed the limits of human sound now, but they still continued - rising, ever rising... Would they reach the final goal, the full perfection of height?
Rising...
Something was pulling - pulling him downwards.
Something big and heavy and insistent.
It pulled remorselessly - pulled him back, and down... down...
He lay in bed gazing at the window opposite.
Then, breathing heavily and painfully, he stretched an arm out of bed.
The movement seemed curiously cumbrous to him.
The softness of the bed was oppressive; oppressive, too, were the heavy curtains over the window that blocked out light and air.
The ceiling seemed to press down upon him.
He felt stifled and choked. He moved slightly under the bedclothes, and the weight of his body seemed to him the most oppressive of all...
II
"I want your advice, Seldon."
Seldon pushed back his chair an inch or so from the table.
He had been wondering what was the object of this tete-a-tete dinner.
He had seen little of Hamer since the winter, and he was aware tonight of some indefinable change in his friend.
"It's just this," said the millionaire. "I'm worried about myself."
Seldon smiled as he looked across the table.
"You're looking in the pink of condition."
"It's not that." Hamer paused a minute, then added quietly, "I'm afraid I'm going mad."
The nerve specialist glanced up with a sudden keen interest. He poured himself out a glass of port with a rather slow movement, and then said quietly, but with a sharp glance at the other man:
"What makes you think that?"
"Something that's happened to me. Something inexplicable, unbelievable.
It can't be true, so I must be going mad."
"Take your time," said Seldon, "and tell me about it."
"I don't believe in the supernatural," began Hamer. "I never have. But this thing... Well, I'd better tell you the whole story from the beginning.
It began last winter one evening after I had dined with you."
Then briefly and concisely he narrated the events of his walk home and the strange sequel.
"That was the beginning of it all.
I can't explain it to you properly - the feeling, I mean - but it was wonderful! Unlike anything I've ever felt or dreamed.
Well, it's gone on ever since.
Not every night, just now and then.
The music, the feeling of being uplifted, the soaring flight... and then the terrible drag, the pull back to earth, and afterwards the pain, the actual physical pain of the awakening.
It's like coming down from a high mountain - you know the pains in the ears one gets?
Well, this is the same thing, but intensified - and with it goes the awful sense of weight - of being hemmed in, stifled..."
He broke off and there was a pause.
"Already the servants think I'm mad.